Steven Spielberg’s Wii title to be “action-puzzle simulator”
Monday, July 9th, 2007 at 8:55am by Jack
Back in March we reported that Steven Spielberg — inspired by his Wii Tennis encounter with Shigeru Miyamoto at E3 2006 — was interested in working on a Wii title. Today, we find out a little more about that Wii/Spielberg project and how it’s coalesced into something with a name.
[The game will be an] action-puzzle simulator—code-named PQRS—that neatly blends the creativity of the building-blocks game Jenga with the charm of a Saturday-morning cartoon. It runs on top of a physics program that lets you manipulate blocks with the Wii remote as if it were an extension of your hand. Or, as Spielberg explains for all the non-geeks out there, “It just seemed like a great thing for the entire family to play together over Christmas. Although you don’t need the excuse of a holiday to enjoy it.”
First of all, that’s a great product pitch. When designers or producers or screenwriters make a pitch, it has to be concise and to the point. And it has to be good, natch. “Jenga meets Saturday morning cartoons” draws in the family gamers, the puzzle gamers and the kids all in one fell swoop. And it’s got me interested too. Let’s hope this game’s art direction is more E.T. than Schindler’s List however, as I don’t want to be weeping like a baby when I beat it.
July 9th, 2007 at 9:38 am
Let’s hope its less ET The Game, and more…um, Jenga meets Saturday morning cartoons!
July 9th, 2007 at 9:54 am
In other words….another mini-game type game.
Can’t say I’m super-excited, but I’ll probably give it a rental at least.
July 9th, 2007 at 10:28 am
Why create an elaborate and involving game experience when you can just throw out another mini-game compilation to cash in while the Wii is still hot?
July 9th, 2007 at 11:09 am
@exo — way to generalize and just plain make stuff up. We know next to nothing about this game. However, if you have an insider’s tip or a scoop on what this game is going to be, then by all means please share it.
@ResidentialEvil — since when did a puzzle game get dragged into the “mini-games” genre? Is Tetris a Mini-game now? Is Meteos?
The beauty of the Internet.
July 9th, 2007 at 1:42 pm
@Jack - It’s not really hard to figure out. Most puzzle games have always been closely associated with mini-games. Unless you mean to tell me Tetris has an epic storyline with great characters. I must have missed that version.
Besides that’s not even the point. The Wii has been mostly mini-games and ports, and a puzzle game tilts more towards WarioWare than Super Mario Galaxy. Considering the news also is that Spielberg is making a game for the 360/PS3 that is a sci-fi thriller. Wii gets a kid’s puzzle game, 360/PS3 gets a sci-fi thriller…..hmmm.
July 9th, 2007 at 2:49 pm
It’s sounds like us Wii owners are once again getting the short end of the stick.
July 9th, 2007 at 2:49 pm
So, unless a game has epic storylines and great characters, it is a mini-game? Help me out here, because I aced Logic in college and this is getting confusing.
A mini game is what you find in Rayman, or Mario Party, and yes, even in Wario. My definition is: something that, on its own, would constitute a very brief game play experience. An unfulfilled game play experience, again, on its own.
But then we have Meteos, which is also a puzzle game, and it DOES boast characters and levels and an ending. Actually, it has multiple endings and things to unlock. This is a mini-game? I should remove it from puzzles, which i consider their own genre, and begin to typecast it as such? Again, I’m confused.
Are a lot of mini-games puzzles? Yes. Does this mean that all puzzles are mini-games? Seems so, if you believe the spin. But that’s a failure of the most basic of logic tests.
Also, please name all the mini games that have seemingly choked the Wii pipeline. I can name a few, but not enough to typecast the system. Wii Play, Ray man… and, uh.. I’m starting to draw a blank here… However, I can name Excite Truck, Medal of Honor, Paper Mario, Zelda, Red Steel, SSX, Madden… the list goes on. How many of that very brief list I just mentioned were ports (as in the true meaning of the word, since I know Paper Mario is going to get red flagged)? How many games of ANY system’s first year are NOT ports? And quality aside (because I know people are going to bring THAT chestnut up again), these are not mini games, and I can rattle them off much faster and with more confidence than if someone told me to start naming all these Wii “mini-games” I started to here about a few months ago.
Is there a danger that mini games could take over the Wii? Yes and No. Throwing a mini game onto the Wii to ride its coattails works for the short term, but you can bet pissed off gamers aren’t going to buy that company’s second offering.
That said, to simply dismiss this as-of-unknown title simply because of this artificial “mini game” spin that seems to be going around lately, and simply because it’s not what you want (you, in this case, not referring to anyone in particular)… well, that’s just plain irresponsible.
It’s Stevie Spieg’s first attempt at a Wii game. If he wants to develop a puzzle game, then let’s play it first, and then attack the message boards, ok? — didn’t we play Super Paper Mario, people? Who knows, he might just include some epic storyline and great characters in, gasp, a puzzle game. What then will we do?
July 9th, 2007 at 3:04 pm
im down for jenga